Early in the
morning of 7 November 1825, in the town of Frankfort, KY, a young lawyer named
Jereboam O. Beauchamp crept to the house of the state attorney general, Solomon
P. Sharp, and stabbed him to death. The
murder was orchestrated to avenge the honor of Anna Cook[1],
Beauchamp’s wife, who as a single woman had been seduced, impregnated, and
abandoned by Sharp[2]. The event was a national sensation
immediately following its discovery and Beauchamp’s capture days later. Following Cook and Beauchamp’s failed joint
suicide attempt and the latter’s subsequent execution, ...